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Rodeo-Chediski Fire

June 18-July 7, 2002

The Rodeo-Chediski Fire was the largest fire in Arizona’s history

Burning through more then 467,000 acres of Arizona’s ponderosa pine forest, the Rodeo-Chediski fire burned for 20 days before it was contained, with smoke plumes rising upwards of 30,000 feet into the atmosphere.  The fire was so intense that it created it’s own weather pattern to the point that air traffic above the area had to be re-routed.  The 1920s RR boxcar (photo above) served as the gym and art studio on our property and fortunately was the only structure we lost to the fire on the site.  10 years of weekends doing forestry thinning on and around the property combined with following the permaculture design for fire prone landscape submitted by Regenesis saved our homes and prevented the devastation that surrounded us.

Working as planned

The photo on the left shows the desired results as the weirs slow down and collect the water and sediments.  Six years later (right), all that can be seen of the weirs is the tops of some of the metal fence posts we used to secure the wire fencing and straw bales.  They succeeded in collecting soils and the ravine has re-established itself with ground covers, native shrubs and grasses preventing such heavy water flow down slope.

Contour swales on the property

An integral part of the overall site design involved creating “swales” throughout the property.  These swales are a series of ditches (approximately 10-12 ft wide and 4 ft deep) sculpted on the contours of the property, overflowing one into the next.  They are an effective and inexpensive means to collect and infiltrate runoff water.  Another recommendation of the Regenesis site design, these swales proved invaluable in protecting Eartha Madre from the onslaught of summer monsoon rain flooding, especially after the devastation of the fire to the surrounding watershed.  The photos to the left and below are both taken immediately following a short but intense summer thunderstorm.  The water filled up all the swales on the property to the brim, each one overflowing into the one below it and ultimately overflowing down the decorative streambed just outside the front of the main house.  Exactly as planned these simple water encouragement techniques not only prevent flooding but collecting all this extra water stops it from flowing off the site, effectively increasing our annual rainfall by double because it all has a chance to soak into the landscape rather than run through it.

Way too close for comfort

The entire area looked like a moonscape when we finally returned to the site more than two weeks after being evacuated.  Everything was charred, smoke was still whisping up from underground roots that were still smoldering.  At it closest point the fire burned within 18” of the guest house (right) and it destroyed the boxcar completely along with several large trees that surrounded it.

The power of running water

Several of the weirs didn’t stand up to the intense water flow, leaving 100 pound straw bales strewn down the ravine.  After some modifications to our installation techniques, we were able to create weirs strong enough to slow down the flow, encouraging the release of top soils and sediment into the pools.  Upon receiving a letter of authority to manage the forest surrounding our property from the Forest district’s head ranger, We held two separate “hands on” workshops with friends and interested parties demonstrating the weir building process and placement.  All totaled we installed 12 weirs throughout the watershed.

Immediately following the evacuation we began focusing our attention on the watershed surrounding us.  With no vegetation to absorb the coming summer monsoon rains, flooding of the site was a big concern and very probable.  We began constructing weirs (above), structures to slow the movement of water down the ravines that eventually spill out onto and across our property.  Our first weirs caught mostly ash.

A living example of connectedness on the planet...

The Eartha Madre Project

USFS Fire map showing the fire damage to the forest surrounding us

We were evacuated on June 19th due to the fire and it’s eminent approach.  The forests surrounding us have been an area of challenge for the forest service for a number of years and the lack of ‘natural” ground fires to thin out underbrush created a tinderbox of fuel just waiting for a hot dry summer and a spark.  During that summer in 2002 those things came together and destroyed everything in its path.  In our small community of Pinedale, Arizona and the surrounding area, there were almost 400 homes lost to the fire.  Through our education with Regenesis and understanding the natural cycles of past fires in the area, our preparations, site work and the design of the new house all worked exactly as intended.  Synchronicity inspired us to put the first plaster coating on the straw clay walls that fateful week in June which we finished on the day the fire started.  Just as our permaculture evaluation predicted, the new house was not in the direct fire channel based on the topography and the metal roof, mud plaster walls and stone fascia didn’t give the flying embers anything flammable to work with on either house on the property.